Jodi Picoult Quotes
Stem cell research has become such a polarizing issue in America... and I wanted to bring it down to the personal level, instead of the political.
Picoult, Jodi. My Sister's Keeper. Atria Books, 2004, Author's Note, p. 423.
George W. Bush followed his deeply held religious belief and that of a small, but controlling religious fundamentalist segment of the Republican Party and banned Federal funding of scientific research that involved fetal stem cells. The thinking of the religious fundamentalist was that if fetal stem cell research were to be extensive there might be a demand for the fetal cells which could come from abortion. This might create more abortions and it would mean that something good might result from a terrible evil—an abortion. This in turn might make abortion less terrible for some people and produce some moral ambiguity. At the same time there are tens of thousands of fertilized embryos available from in vitro fertilization procedures where extras are produced but usually not needed and often are disposed of as waste. However, these fundamentalists do not want to even allow those to be used. Hence, the “insanity” characterization which is more accurately illogicality.
When couples use in vitro fertilization to have children, they usually produce several fertilized embryos one of which is implanted into the womb of the mother. The other embryos can produce stem cells which are cells that can grow into any other kind of cell—brain cells, bone, cells, kidney cells, stc. Therefore they have the most promise for medical research. However, some people regard the embryos as human beings at an early stage of development and see the embryos as life. For them the notion of using that “life” for medical research where a human being will not be produced but instead a medicine or replacement cells for a sick person crosses a moral line of what is proper for a life form. Others observe that the embryos are kept alive in freezers and will be thrown away if not needed so why not use them to help mankind. At the other extreme some are opposed to allowing in vitro fertilization to begin with, but there have been over a million people born with this technique to couples who otherwise would not have been able to have children.
Jodi Lynn Picoult is an American writer. Picoult has published 26 novels, accompanying short stories, and has also written several issues of Wonder Woman. Approximately 40 million copies of her books are in print worldwide, translated into 34 languages. She was awarded the New England Bookseller Award for fiction in 2003.
